


and so the apple rolls

by Emerial



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Dramedy, F/M, Family, Old Married Couple Syndrome, Romance, Rufus Being Rufus, Turks as family, by the gods there are OCs get in the car!, is anger kink a thing, questionable parenting, these two needs a room still, when the ex-terrorist is the level-headed one in the relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-09-19 07:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerial/pseuds/Emerial
Summary: On the joys (not really) of fatherhood.





	1. jellied instant ramen

**Author's Note:**

> Rufus = 32  
Tifa = 27  
Do your own math from now on.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rufus gets the rug pulled out from underneath him.

His wife announces her pregnancy two years into their marriage.

It’s a boy, Rufus immediately concludes.

His family tree, as far back as he’s been willing to pay attention to, has been this:

Lupin E. Shinra sired nine boys. This was back when a crowded family was still considered prudent, and bloodshed over the family fortune was as rife as the veins of lifestream beneath the earth.

Gerald L. Shinra, fortunate (or unfortunate) sole survivor of the nine, had three boys and promptly arranged for all three their fair share of the inheritance. One of the three brothers was ambitious, power-hungry Rufus G. Shinra, and the rest was history.

Perhaps the statistics are skewed. The bloodshed and infighting bottleneck the population, and Rufus would be remiss to overlook the disposal of any non-male offspring that the older generations have been known for.

But he looks at himself and Lazard, and his remaining slew of twelve illegitimate half-brothers – made privy to their heritage or not, and concludes these:

Shinra men have an atypical Y sex chromosomes count and/or few to no viable X counterparts,

Shinra children are boys.

_A son. Mine, _he thinks with a vague sense of crisis as he runs his hand down Tifa’s flat belly and hugs her closer in his lap.

He supposes it has always been a possibility that came with their arrangement, even if he’s been quick to dismiss it, convinced the mako treatments after Meteor have rendered him infertile.

That hasn’t bothered him. Flesh and blood have never gotten him anywhere.

Tifa wishes for the gender to remain a surprise (and seems so happy), so he acquiesces with a nod into the nape of her neck and says nothing of his certainty.

* * *

Tifa has her obligatory mood swings and pesters him (his Turks) with the strange cravings. From time to time, he still shudders at the memory of jellied instant ramen.

It gives him both marvel and dread to have his palm pressed flushed against the bulge of her stomach. If she noticed the slight tremble in his hand beneath hers, she said nothing of it.

There’s a strange pleasure that he takes in bringing his wife down a notch in terms of her ability to take care of herself, especially approaching her trimester.

She carries to full term and misses her due date. Her water breaks in the dead of night, when she’s halfway to the bathroom, and wakes the entire penthouse. But that isn’t saying much because they are all light sleepers there.

The move to Edge’s best-equipped hospital is as speedy as can be. For the next eight hours, he stands in witness of his own personal trauma.

One perhaps never knows true horror until he sees his otherwise impervious life partner scream her throat raw in the midst of gore so grisly it puts crime scenes to shame.

“Please make sure you support the head, Mr. Shinra.” The blue-garbed nurse pushes the resulting wailing bundle onto him. “Congratulations! It’s a girl!”

He might have scowled because the beaming smile behind the nurse’s mask wanes considerably the next moment.

Rufus doesn’t expect anyone to understand that the situation he’s found himself in is unmistakably grim. It’s a nightmare, except not even in his worst nightmares has he ever entertained this caliber of outrageousness.

The fletching, six-and-a-half-pound life form twisting in his arms is nothing but a monster threatening to destroy everything that is Rufus Shinra.

Beady crimson eyes, wisps of black hair and a snarl that are all _Tifa._ Still drenched in his wife’s blood, the tiny atrocity has already awoken every protective instinct he never realized he possesses and promised to have him wrapped right around its little finger.

But it’s a girl and that doesn’t make sense.

He wonders for a moment if it isn’t mutation. If it isn’t whatever mako still in his system at play. He refuses to accept that this minutes-old child, Gaia-forsakenly ugly as she is, has any imperfection.

Numbly, he obeys the nurses’ encouragement to come to his wife and show her the fruit of her labor. Tifa looks like she’s just wrestled a hundred chocobos to submission.

He brushes sweaty strands away from her forehead and watches as her eyes glaze over, at first by exhaustion and then by tears upon seeing the beautiful monster.

“She looks like you,” he says. She takes the bundle into her own embrace, already all soothing and nurturing and motherly like he knows her to be.

When he tries to get her attention, she has to tear her eyes away from her daughter to meet his gaze.

“Tell me. I won’t get mad.” And he tells himself he really won’t. She’s happy, and he hasn’t been too keen on continuing his cursed bloodline. He can be happy for her, if not with.

In response, she frowns, confused. He unconsciously tightens his grip on the back of the delivery bed as his stomach roils with something he doesn’t quite care to give a name to. He bends down next to her and continues, no louder than a whisper.

“Who did you cheat on me with?”

.

.

.

His wife is discharged two days later. On the night of her homecoming, Rufus sleeps in the guest bedroom.

The solitude turns out to be strangely calming as he struggles with a reality that still doesn’t feel real.

* * *

On the third day after the birth, Tifa finally forgives enough to speak to him.

They sit down in the lounge to talk after breakfast.

With bags beneath her eyes and Salina, their infant child, sleeping against her bosom, Tifa gives him a sweet smile that he knows really means: _You’re an idiot but I’m too tired to argue so here’s something pretty to look at now give me the money for your order and go away._

But he’s not arguing with her, partly because loud noises would wake the little monster. Mostly because he’s only explaining to her why his thoughts have gone in the direction they did.

“How are you so sure you’re not the one who’s not ‘Shinra’ in the first place?” she asks, and it gives him pause. He runs the double negative over in his mind for a moment.

Before he can decide to take it as an affront, however hypocritical, she sighs and reaches up to peck him on the corner of his mouth. It wipes him irritatingly clear of all miff.

“Statistical improbability aside, dear husband, she’s yours.”

* * *

Rufus has a dilemma. An ongoing one, it seems.

At a very young age, he has been made well aware of these:

His was a position of prestige and anathemas.

The man he was taught to be, and willingly becoming, was a death sentence for anyone or anything he might love.

Bonds were just that – bondage, the chains and fetters that would hold him down and muddy his resolution.

Emotions were irrelevant.

Young Rufus has thought it easy. Knowing what he knew, he would have to be stupid, or masochistic, or both, to even bother caring for a person other than himself.

The kid he has been, has spent every effort to keep people at arm’s length. Or tried to.

Because time has since then told, again and again, the heart he fervently denies having, lather it with steel and ice as he might, is still grievously pregnable.

It started with the darknation that rubbed up to his leg for no reason than to alert him of her warm presence.

Tseng came along sometime later, and that bled into Rude and Reno whom Tseng trusted and who trusted Rufus; and then Elena who cared for Tseng and therein Rufus in some incomprehensible cycle of loyalty.

When he went and fell in love with an anti-Shin·Ra terrorist he knew there was the invisible line.

An infatuation, he’s corrected himself. And reasoned and argued that it was fine, that it would fade before any damage was done.

She was chasing after someone else’s back, and he chased after nobody. It would fade, he told himself.

But it never did, morphed into something else instead. Something much more persistent and consuming.

She who seemed to feel so much yet never let those feelings get in the way of her resolution; who, in fact, capitalised on these blindingly powerful emotions and propels herself forward.

He found her irresistibly beautiful.

By the time he understood all of this, Rufus was already beyond saving. She turned that fiery passion his way, and all it took was one heartfelt confession for his own resolve to crumble like dust.

So she wished to stay with him. Who was he to stop her? He made her one of his own, just so he would have one less person to worry about.

But that wasn’t good thinking at work, he now realizes.

Perhaps it wasn’t thinking at all, considering he could barely keep his hands off her in the honeymoon that followed, that stretched on and seemed to have no end. The woman is honest-to-Gaia too enticing for her own good.

Now, as he cradles his four-day-old daughter (whom Tifa has allowed him to hold again), he feels an odd mix of elation and distress.

Yet another living being has managed to worm her way into his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno why I did this. I usually steer clear of baby fics, children-hater as I am, but then I got inspired. A friend of mine said it felt like Shinra only get boys, and I was like, lemme remedy that! #equality(?)
> 
> I intended this to be comedy. I can't keep the drama out and now we have dramedy.
> 
> I also wanted a quick oneshot and this TOTALLY didn't explode into multi chaps.
> 
> Late President Rufus G. Shinra, narcissist he was, named his son Rufus R. Shinra
> 
> Edge's best-equipped hospital, Gainsborough, is funded by ShinRa under WRO's name. It's an ongoing, unofficial penalty for ShinRa, in exchange for WRO staying off Rufus' back following the Deepground scandal. Rufus is content leaving it that way knowing people, after everything, aren't going to come and get treated inside a ShinRa-affiliated institution. And it wins him brownies point with Tifa.
> 
> Rufus' deceased pet/guard dog/cat was named Dark Nation, but in Crisis Core there are monsters you fight also called Dark Nations. So I made darknation a breed of monsters, and Rufus just very lazily named his darknation Dark Nation.


	2. white oak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even when watered down by age, Rufus is still a megalomaniac.

Today marks a full week since Salina’s birth.

After Tifa has fed, burped and changed Salina, during which he only hovered by rather uselessly, they retreat to his study for the evening, and he is given charge of their daughter so that she can get some reading done.

He’s determined from day one – or more technically day 3 – that he’ll never be the type of parent that entertain his newborn, and it’s not necessarily due to choice but nature.

Or perhaps nurture.

For the first time in his thirty years of life, he finds himself with thoughts of his first days on the Planet.

He recalls fading into awareness, and existence, with his first memory as a five-year-old, picking up a mountain beetle, as large as his own hand at the time, that has landed onto a balcony with greying parapets. Anything prior to that is a fathomless void.

There is no photo. No record of his birth that he knows of. Just a report that ascertains his blood to be conclusively Shinra.

He doesn’t think he saw many games of peek-a-boo as an infant, and probably, if anyone cared to make faces down into his crib, they would not be funny ones. (And maybe that is funny in itself.)

He’s been raised as the king, not the jester. Too old, a little too set in his ways to be learning new tricks now. A lifetime of molded and perfected decorum.

How out of character would it be for him to attempt some whimsical way to appeal to the flightiness of a child? Make incoherent cooing noises just to match and communicate(?) with a mind that hasn’t developed even its own ego?

That, and child play is just decidedly beneath him.

To his great fortune, then, that Salina isn’t a fussy baby. She doesn’t seem to need to be entertained, usually content to just watch the world unfold around her.

Next to him, Tifa shifts against his shoulder as she turns a page, engrossed by the book in her lap. His mind, in its attempt to steer from the unknown, wanders into a territory he knows quite well: his enemies.

With Tifa, he’s been able to tolerate it. For none can deny her combat prowess, and between materia proficiency, deadly reflexes, and a razor-sharp intuition, she’s capable of leveling a small army to the ground.

She can fend for herself, even if he’s less than happy with how often she tests the limits of that theory.

But now that there exists his weak, squishy, pale, defenseless, wide-eyed, gum-mouthed infant child, he might as well have carved out his heart and served it on a silver platter (the material of which might just interact supernaturally with his flesh, if his biology is anything like the conspiracy theorists paint it up to be—or was it white oak?).

He rests his cheek against a palm and looks into curious red eyes that stare back at him in silent wonder. So clueless and assured of her own safety.

“I might have to hide her away from the world.”

He catches Tifa’s gaze and smiles. She dog-ears the page and humors him. “Where?”

“Nibelheim.”

Tifa’s eyes flash dangerously at his obvious attempt at ingratiation, but he doesn’t imagine it will take much more to warm her up to the idea.

The old man has hidden infant Rufus in that backwater town as well, and no one was any wiser about his existence. It probably would have stayed that way had he not been announced as heir.

“I’d buy the old mansion back from WRO. You’d be with her, and my finest Turks.”

“And you’d be with your new mistress with the ball and chain out of the way? Set your sight on someone younger, didn’t you?”

He chuckles as he adjusts his hold on his daughter, who stirs and whines at the disturbance. “I’d visit as often as I can.”

“You can’t keep her there forever, you know.”

“You also said I couldn’t have you. Where are we now?” Tifa rolls her eyes at his smug smirk that dims too quickly. “I’d make it so she would never need or want to leave. You understand I don’t keep the best company.”

His daughter, spending her life in peace, away from the acid and pollution of Edge, out of the bruising clutch of the world. Give her a home in Nibelheim. Give her the best education to facilitate the brilliant mind she is sure to have.

The cost and manpower to upkeep her living condition wouldn’t be a problem. And any kink in the logistics could be ironed out, as they always could be.

Everything, anything, so his child would never step foot outside Nibelheim—the mansion if he had his way. But he imagines _that_ would be harder to get past Tifa.

“Think, Tifa. The world doesn’t have to know she exists.”

In the eye of the law, Salina Shinra will be invisible. Untouchable. All records of her birth would be sealed as state secret if not purged (his mind jumps to his own missing birth record but he quickly abandons that useless line of musing). And the hospital staff will be silenced.

Probably with a lot of money because what else does one use it for?

Preferably though, with death. Dead people won’t speak. (His wife will definitely have a problem with that, but whoever says she has to know?)

Tifa’s eyes search his carefully, but not warily, and he breaks eye contact before she can glean the maliciousness he knows she doesn’t like. He sinks down to nuzzle the hollow of Tifa’s neck, the lingering dryness of her skin and acrid taste of medicinal lotion she’s been prescribed, and soaks in her calming scent underneath it all.

Tifa sighs softly into his hair.

“But it already does,” she says.

“So it does.”

He lives in a glass house. Tifa’s pregnancy has been plastered across all manners of news and media outlets, widely trusted stations and gossip magazines alike, the moment she’s started showing.

He hasn’t yet picked up a newspaper, so drained by the birth even though he contributed little more than a Y chromosome, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the entire continent is discussing the new Shinra child and what it means in the long run.

Sometimes, he begrudges Reeve more than usual for not letting him fade into the shadows.

He could silence them all. But that would be committing mass genocide. That’s far too reminiscent of the old man for him to find attractive even in his most manic epiphany.

“It’s only one idea, Tifa. Be a supportive wife and not rain on your husband’s parade?”

He feels a tug on his mouth as he pokes into Salina’s wee curled palm, earning what he suspects is an admonishing noise. Like he needs any more proof she’s her mother’s.

Tifa’s quick laugh thrums along the skin of her throat. She leans into him, legs curled to her body, and strokes the dark fuzz on Salina’s head.

“I dread your future brainstorming sessions, husband, if that’s the first thing you come up with.”

“It’s not the first.”

Red eyes glance down at him in a moment of consideration. “Dare I ask?”

“Rule the world with fear.”

He smiles at the unamused look she gifts him.

* * *

**omake:**

“Your jokes are very unfunny, you know that?”

They finally climb into bed after he’s persuaded her that his Turks have all been adequately trained to watch over an infant, and that she really ought to rest if she wants to be any good as a mother in the morning.

“Who said anything about joking?” He gathers her against him. Her limp form that molds readily into his chest speaks volumes of her exhaustion. She mumbles into his neck, draping an arm over him.

“You better do, dear. Because I’m neither in the mood nor shape to bring down a corrupt tyrant right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infant Rufus was taken care of entirely by a committee of Turks assigned in Nibelheim at the time.
> 
> Nibelheim is a common ground that Rufus and Tifa bonded over.
> 
> When Rufus was announced as heir at age 6, no one knew the late President Shinra had a son. Or a wife. His wife is later revealed to be the daughter of one of old ShinRa Inc.'s major stockholders. The two quietly divorced a few years later.
> 
> 13-year-old Tseng was assigned to 9-year-old Rufus after completing his Turk training at an exceptionally young age.
> 
> Why am I worldbuilding so much for a oneshot?


	3. pests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future seems to hold many things Rufus doesn't like and he must start his preparations.

Salina’s first birthday is in three days, and the entire world is his mortal enemy.

Every single soul on this planet will know to never touch his child. Anyone who so much as glances at her will answer to him.

His hard stare sends the rookie Turks stationed at the penthouse running for the door. Because who gave them the gall to smile at his daughter’s clumsy attempt at his food, even if it was adorable?

He shifts her onto one arm and stabs at his omelet with schooled vehemence.

“Boss, you seem, er, is something bothering you?”

Reno looks unnerved as he takes the revised budget proposals from Rufus. Reno’s currently among the few Rufus finds he can tolerate having in his daughter’s presence, if only due to the Turk’s disinclination for anything younger than the age of majority.

“Nothing is.” But everything is.

Tifa has invited her friends to their daughter’s birthday party, and he’s fairly certain at least two will be named godparent.

While Rufus can appreciate that Tifa has people she can turn to, he has never quite gotten past basic civility with her friends after stealing her away from them. He finds that he dislikes quite a lot the idea of sharing yet another person with that rowdy bunch.

“He’s just being a grouch, Reno,” Tifa says from behind the kitchen island. The pan starts sizzling again with the smell of egg and oil. “Are you going to join us for breakfast?”

“He’s not.” Rufus isn’t okay, however, with Reno being in his wife’s presence for anything outside of a professional context, and he’s feeling particularly territorial today.

“I didn’t ask you, dear.”

But the look he sets on Reno has already ensured the Turk’s response to be favorable for him.

“S’okay, Teef. Gotta er- run back to the company. Yeah. Um, catch ya later!”

As Reno quickly makes himself scarce, Rufus can feel his wife’s eye roll with her back still turned.

The stove is turned off, and he can hear Salina’s tiny cooing voice as she smears some more drool into his shirt. Tifa joins him at the table with her own plate of eggs and a teasing smile on her lovely face.

“You’re more than welcomed to submit your own candidates, you know? How about Tseng?”

He shoots her a look, both mystified and slightly offended by the fact she seems to have it in her head that mentioning Tseng is supposed to placate him somehow.

“Is it going to stop you from considering Yuffie Kisaragi?”

Should both he and Tifa become…indisposed, he wants the empress-in-training nowhere near emotional sway over his daughter.

“Not in the slightest.”

“Then I see no reason to participate in such a redundant practice. Tseng will watch over her regardless of labels. As will any of my Turks.”

Tifa shakes her head, grinning, as she begins on her breakfast.

“Oh, Rufus. If you’re like this when she’s one, how are you going to survive her leaving one day?”

The very implication in her words makes him sick in the stomach, and he, with all his world-weary wiles, cannot fathom how his wife is already considering that horrifying outcome and yet seems to be perfectly okay with it.

“I don’t have to survive anything because such a day will not come. She is never leaving the house.”

Tifa laughs around a forkful of omelet, likely taking his words as hyperbole, but, as musical as her laughter is, he’s meant every word and cannot muster the same amusement to match hers.

“Relax. You won’t have to worry for at least another ten years. That’s when the puppy loves start rolling in.”

His hold on Salina tightens without him meaning to, prompting a surprised grunt from her.

There’s a sharp increase in his blood pressure at the notion that his daughter, still so weightless in his arm, might be infatuated with and led along by some faceless brat by the age of eleven.

If Salina grows up to be anything like his wife (which she’s clearly going to), she’s going to have the world’s male population slobbering after her like a pack of guard hounds in heat.

He drops the fork and palms for his PHS in his slacks pocket and quick-dials a number.

_“Yeah boss?”_

“Come back here. Now.”

* * *

**omake:**

“President.” Tseng approaches him the next day in his office, proposal in hand. “Please elaborate on this new _‘Pesticide’_ budget.”

* * *

**omake 2:**

“Baba!”

Rufus returns home that evening to find Salina in the bouncing hold of one of the rookies, the gangly one with black bob cut. The kid has volunteered his experience with five younger siblings back in Gongaga and has naturally been placed in the penthouse following Salina’s birth.

“The Missus is on the phone, sir. A problem with the catering order.” There’s a flash of panic in green eyes as the kid, having been glared at the day before just for staring, hastily explains. “I’ve just been taking care of the young miss for a bit.”

“Baba!” Salina wiggles, palms reaching for Rufus, and the Turk – Haku, his mind supplies – nearly breaks into a run to cover the ten feet or so between them to deposit her into Rufus’ waiting arms.

“I can see the young miss really likes you, President.”

Something softens inside his chest as she excitedly settles against him, and, even as he pulls her hand away from pinching his cheek, he can’t help feel a little smug about it. “Children are honest creatures, I suppose.”

Right then, he catches his wife in the doorway leading into the study, a focus look on her face as she speaks into the phone regarding something on the paper in her hands. So does Salina, apparently, because the next moment-

“Mama! Mama!” She screams and starts wiggling again to get away and to her mother.

“Your Mama’s busy Salina.” He struggles to hold her still as she pushes his face to the side. He accidentally meets Haku’s gaze, and although the Turk hasn’t said anything, Rufus can clearly see the sagely, sympathetic look of someone who knows too well the heartless whimsy of children.


	4. pomegranate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rufus attempts to teach something he's not quite a master of himself.

“Mama, what is love?”

Salina is only six when she returns from a field trip with her class and asks a deeply philosophical question.

Rufus, half conked out in the armchair from a tiring day of damage control involving a shipment of medicine to Corel that was recalled by the health inspectors, is thus completely sober, eyes snapping open to find his daughter, still in the deep green of her academy uniform, draped over his wife’s lap on the couch.

The woman in question has that glint in her eyes, the one he’s learnt females tend to inexplicably get the moment romance becomes a topic of discussion.

And he’s getting a mini heart attack from holding his six-year-old daughter and romance in the same line of thought.

“That’s a tough question. I think the answer changes depending on why you’re asking.” Tifa smiles and runs her fingers across Salina’s dark bangs, tucking a long strand behind her ear. “What brought this on?”

Yes, who’s the responsible party for sowing these worthless ideas into his daughter’s impressionable head?

“Well…” Salina begins.

There is some obscure legend about eternal love involving an off-season pomegranate tree in Bone Village, where her class has gone to for the field trip. Nothing but a tourist trap, but it happened to resonate with a poem series they were learning in class so the teacher had the brilliant idea to mention it during their visit.

Rufus has half a mind to make a call to the ministry and put in a bill to revise Edge’s education system right then.

“How do I know if I love someone?”

Tifa hums amiably and pulls Salina closer to her, resting her chin over the top of Salina’s head.

“Well-wishing.”

“Well-wishing?”

“Mhm, if you love someone, you want all the best for that person. Like how your Papa and I love you.” Tifa catches his gaze the following moment and gives him a smile that crinkles her eyes and purses her lips in such a way that makes his stomach tremble, as if saying _And like how I love you._

Salina falls silent for a length, face deceptively blank, as she takes in the gentle wisdom behind her mother’s smile.

In that split second, he sees a piece of himself in his child, the awkward piece that still freezes up like a deer in the headlights when faced with earnestness from another and doesn’t know how to deal or even what to do with such straightforward and disarming sentiments.

He doesn’t have to this time, however, as Tifa doesn’t linger on him for very long.

“So, is there someone you have in mind, Lin?”

Salina hesitates, red eyes glancing warily at him. As the seconds go on, a pressure begins to build in his lungs that clues him in on a held breath.

He wonders if she’s just shy or actually fearful of him. He wonders if she doubts her mother words that he even cares for her, if not loves, because he doesn’t show it the way her mother does.

Somewhere along the way, she’s stopped clinging to the leg of his trousers, and he hasn’t attributed much thought to it. She’s always preferred her mother more, and that clearly hasn’t changed.

Then she speaks.

“Uncle Tseng.”

The confession is like a burst dam, or perhaps a tidal wave, and he, the President of Shin·Ra Inc., the man who commands thousands directly and indirectly, and can create waves in the business and political spheres with a snap of his fingers, an incessant player in the dealings of the darkest underbelly of every major city and hardened tyrant all but raised up on Turk discipline, is sent reeling for equilibrium.

His first thought in the following pin-drop silence: _lies._

His wife has given him a bald-faced lie and lulled him into complacency, letting him believe he still had at least another four years.

His second thought is that he unfortunately has to dispose of his right-hand man.

Salina is mortified by her own confession, her head sinking between her shoulders as she covers her face with both palms. Even then, her pale skin readily shows her blush between the cracks of her fingers.

“Uncle Tseng, huh?” Tifa looks too amused, shooting smug glances his way.

“I know he has Aunt Elena, and he’s so much older, but he’s…” Salina gulps, voice cracking from an evidently dry throat. “I think he’s…mysterious.”

It has to be some great karmic force at work, that he’s spared no cost to keep the pests away from his daughter only for her admiration to ultimately fall upon his own aide.

He knows potential when he sees it. Salina is an intelligent child, having progressed through her developmental stages by leaps and bounds ahead of her peers, but perhaps she’s growing up a little too quickly.

“I know it’s bad to think that way about him.” Tifa starts to gently object, but Salina rambles on. “But Yan said her parents are not married. So I was just…I didn’t understand because I thought Uncle and Auntie loved each other, like you and Papa, and you two are married. And—”

“Tseng and Elena are Turks, Salina,” he tells her lazily from his seat. His only purpose is to put an end to her unseemly rambling. Shinra’s don’t ramble. And- “Turks don’t get married.”

She looks to him, confusion and curiosity overtaking her embarrassment. “Why not, Papa?”

He’s expected the question. Her eyes are as innocent as the day he first met her, and he doesn’t respond right away like he thought he would.

Rather than _don’t_, it’s more accurate to say, _there’s no point. _The fact that two Turks had a child at all is an anomaly unto itself.

Tseng recently died of pneumonia on an extended assignment in the Icicle area, and Elena bled out from multiple stab wounds at a small hospital in the suburbs of Edge two years back.

Rude is still in the middle of laying low in Wutai so they can eventually declare death in absentia.

Reno was last killed perhaps some five years ago, in the midst of a territory dispute in Corel.

Turks disappear all the time, be it on paper or in absolute. Discrepancies throw a wrench into the gears of those who play by the rules, and it’s one of those few contexts where he’s thankful that his most reliable ally as well as greatest menace is the self-righteous Commissioner Tuesti.

His wife is giving him both a pleading and warning look. Her shoulders are visibly tense, and she might have already been across the coffee table to tackle him to the ground if Salina weren’t situated on her lap.

Tseng has given it to him straight. It’s in a Shinra’s best interest to understand as much of what his (her?) legacy entails, as soon as possible. And this is nothing, not even the worst of it.

Mental fortitude as jaded as his doesn’t happen overnight. It’s honed from a young age, with truths, with lies, through restless sleeps and nerve-filled waking hours, in a mind forced to age too quickly.

And just as quickly as that thought occurs to him, he makes his decision.

“Turks are already one family.” He recites the one leadership philosophy of the late Veld he’s always been skeptical of. The one he’s never cared to give credibility to because family’s a loaded term and more than one of its many implications is more than Rufus has ever been willing to shoulder.

“There’s hardly need,” he tells her, and finds it’s surprisingly not a lie on his tongue, “for another piece of paper to tie those two together.”

Tifa’s eyes brighten with satisfaction, or pride, he can’t be sure, but it's not something he can bear facing without the risk of feeling vulnerable, somehow. He doesn’t try to figure it out and instead keeps his gaze on his daughter. There’s idolizing wonder on her expression, and he allows himself a small sense of comfort.

She’s not just a Shinra, and she doesn’t have to be one right now.

She’ll have a lifetime ahead of her to see the darkness of the world.

For now, she can be a Lockhart-

-and learn about love first.

* * *

**omake:**

“So. In light of newly acquired information, you have been deemed unfit and therefore are hereby relieved of your responsibilities in the Pesticide committee.”

Tseng looks positively insulted behind his mask of apathy but nods without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our(My) favorite Turks firsts:
> 
> Tseng died of extreme malnutrition in a village that hasn’t existed since the Wutai War
> 
> Academy graduate Elena perished in the chaos of the plate-dropping.
> 
> Rude had terminal cancer and passed away in Junon at age twelve.
> 
> Reno’s first death certificate tells the tale of a horrible street fight at fourteen. Bonus! His third one maintains his body was retrieved from the rubbles of sector 7 and is the only reason he was never tried by WRO for that tragedy.
> 
> Am I playing loose and fast with the law in this world? Hell yes! Sue me!


	5. apple slices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, the Pesticide program fails miserably, but Rufus is a little distracted to properly care.

“Ah…”

The droplet of blood, ripe as cherries under the sunlight, rolls down from the tip of her fingers from where Salina has cut herself. The sight bothers Rufus more than it probably should.

Salina stares blankly at the injured finger as Tifa hurries over, materia already glowing on her wedding ring.

“There, good as new!”

“Thank you, Mama.”

He closes the document he was perusing and sets it on the table, turning his full attention on his daughter.

At eleven years old, Salina is far from a fumbling child. She’s independent and resourceful – as much as an eleven-year-old can be – and perhaps a bit of a people pleaser, always striving for competency in everything she does. She shouldn’t be cutting herself peeling fruit.

“You’re distracted.”

She looks to him almost immediately. “I suppose…I’m sorry, Papa.”

His brows knit, but before he can say anything about it, Tifa places a hand on Salina’s shoulder. She gently takes the knife from their daughter and starts peeling the remaining apple slices.

“That’s not what your Papa meant, Lin. He’s worried and wants to know what’s on your mind. Right, dear?”

Both pairs of crimson eyes turn on him again, his wife’s smiling, his daughter’s apprehensive, but also anticipative. He sighs and wills the inexplicable bad mood away to put on a smile.

It’s not like him to forget pleasantry, but then again he hasn’t had to fake very much of that around his family.

“Yes. Mama’s right. Do tell, what has you distracted, Salina?”

Salina doesn’t hide her hesitation before she begins.

“I’m not sure. It’s been on my mind that my friend is…different. I suppose I’m bothered by h-is, well, presence.”

He nods and needs no further prompting. “Give me his name. I’ll have the brat shipped across the continent.”

“No!” Salina stops herself and assumes a more reserved attitude. “No, that’s not it, Papa.”

His wife is giving him a reproachful look from the sideline, but he keeps his eyes on Salina for clarification, much more interested in what exactly ‘it’ is. His mind is dissecting the many ways in which a boy can bother her, and none of them he likes.

She takes a slice of apple from her mother and wrings at it in lieu of her own fingers as her gaze drifts from his.

“My friend, he’s not the same. Well, he’s still the same person and I thought nothing would change between us, but it’s just different now. It’s awkward.” Her shoulders slump with a breath. “We were never awkward before.”

He tries to place this boy, shifting through what he knows of her close circles in the academy. It’s not as if she lives a life sterile of the opposite sex, but he struggles to identify a boy that fits the description. He’d better get the Turks on this.

Then it occurs to him that he’s being asked for advice, even though no question has actually been voiced, and that he is in no way equipped to have this kind of conversation with her. About her crush.

Because that’s what this is. Her first crush (Tseng does _not_ count). And Rufus can say nothing that isn’t biased when his own was quickly met with a bullet to the head for aiding in his abduction.

The silence seems to drag on for eternity as he is faced with Salina’s expectant gaze.

“Fight him,” Tifa says.

Both he and his daughter turn to look at her, momentarily speechless.

“F-fight, Mama?”

“Tifa…”

His wife is unfazed, a suspiciously heated and invested look in her eyes.

“I’m serious, ask him for a spar at school. Do it safely, of course, but don’t hold back. You’re frustrated right now, and I imagine it may be the same for him. I can guarantee you the adrenaline makes it very easy to air out grievances.”

There’s another pregnant pause before Salina glances to him for…what, bloody confirmation? Trust his wife to resort to pummeling problems away. But Rufus leans against the table and pinches the bridge of his nose, resigned.

It’s sounder advice than any he could give.

“That works.” He mutters noncommittally, foregoing all ingrained social etiquette by not meeting his child’s eyes.

And if the heavens are on Rufus’ side, which they usually aren’t, Salina would decimate her sparring partner enough to shatter male pride and scare the brat away from her for good.

“You can do as Tifa says. Just be sure he’s worth the trouble.”

“How do you mean, Papa?”

“You’re an intelligent child, Salina.” A flicker of both pride and fret in her expression at his words. “Use your time accordingly.”

She thinks about it before responding. “How do I know if he is worth my time, then?”

Her tone isn’t challenging but rather inquisitive, with a hint of proactive thinking at play.

He can’t help but smirk at how she seems to adopt a demeanor not far from what he remembers seeing in the mirror as a child when he was still practicing his poise. Still awkward on her young frame, but the beginnings of decorum are there.

“If he is someone you consider your equal,” he says, for once, the answer coming easily to him.

It’s something he’s thought about extensively before. What he has with Tifa, one would be egregiously naïve to chalk up to love.

There were the sparks of interest that gave them the ground to stand on and take a good look at each other. There was the attraction that drew them close. But if it was only up to cheap emotions, he would have sooner put a bullet in her head, or his, or both, than let himself be consumed by the maddening emotion.

Tifa’s expression softens with affection as he holds her gaze and smiles at her. Here’s an equal that he respects, even if one he does not admire sometimes, and that was why he’d allowed them to happen.

“Equal in what way?”

His attention darts back to Salina. He reaches over the table and pats her head.

“You’ll have to figure that out on your own.”

He chuckles at the childish pout on Salina’s lips and grabs a slice of apple from the plate before returning to his reading. Salina nibbles at her own slice, slender eyebrows furrowed in deep contemplation for a length.

“What about if he matches me in a fight?”

“I suppose that could be a start,” he says before taking a bite.

“But Papa.” He meets her gaze just in time to see an innocent, but undeniably mischievous, grin. “Do you not always lose to Mama?”

He coughs and nearly chokes on the pieces. Tifa makes a strangled noise, grinning smugly behind her fingers as she sends him a teasing look.

“Does that mean Papa isn’t worth Mama’s time?”

* * *

**omake 1:**

“So I recall you asked me for all those spars during our initial courtship, Tifa.”

He traps her between his arms against the kitchen island and catches the tinge of panic she doesn’t mask quickly enough. He dips his head until their noses were almost touching and stares into the deep red flecks in her eyes.

“I hadn’t realized you were interested that early, wife.”

She gives him a look that says she doesn’t believe a single word he’s just said.

“For the record, it was the only way I could have touched you-” His smirk widens, and she winces, slapping his chest. “That is not what I meant. You called it courtship, the law called it harassment. And-”

“And what did you call it?”

She produces an exasperated groan, poorly hiding her blush. “An annoyance. You seriously got on my nerve, still do actually, but I digress. Tseng stuck to you like glue and wouldn’t let even a gnat land on you.”

“Hmm, well, I still don’t think I did anything deserving of your anger.”

She folds her arm between them and quirks an eyebrow. “Are we doing this again, Shinra?”

“For the record, wife, you’re technically a Shinra as well.”

Her eyes take on that glare of fire that once threatened defenestration back in Seventh Heaven, and his smirk turns into a full-blown grin as he slants his mouth against hers.

“Also, I was both incredibly confused and turned on during those spars.”

* * *

**omake 2:**

It’s been a week after their conversation, but when Salina returns home sporting bruises and scratches down the lengths of her arms as well as a huge pout on her face, Rufus just knows The Spar has taken place.

“He went easy on me,” she grumbles, glaring at the floor as Tifa heals the last of her bruises. Rufus has a feeling some strange rivalry has been formed one-sidedly between her and her crush, and he can’t decide just yet if that’s something he’d like.

“And who is he?” When she doesn’t respond, he looks to Rude, who’s in charge of the daily report.

“Uncle Rude, n-”

“Yan.”

Rufus sits back in the armchair, eyes narrowing incredulously. “You’re referring to Tseng’s daughter.”

“Son.”

A glance across the deathly quiet room reveals that no one else is surprised by this except for him. And judging from the apologetic smile on Tifa’s face he can guess why that has been the case. He takes a stabilizing breath.

“And when did this happen?”

“A few weeks ago, when he turned thirteen.” Rude pauses, then adds, “Old Wutain tradition.”

That explains a lot. Perhaps too much. Tseng may be a Turk, but he's also very traditional when he can help it.

The image of the child with Tseng’s long dark hair and Elena’s smile comes up in Rufus’ mind, and he can’t help a sigh as a part of him grieves(?) the loss of a second daughter he apparently never had.

“I see,” he says simply.

.

.

.

“Care to explain yourself, dear wife?” he asks her in the privacy of their bedroom. On their bed. On top of her.

She shrugs nonchalantly between his legs. “You know, you’d pick up on a lot more news if you’d just deign to have a chat with your employees beyond work-related matters.”

His lips are a thin, unimpressed line. Even now, he can scarcely fathom how she stomachs fraternizing with the newer Turks like they don’t all walk around with an expiration date on their necks.

“Gossip, you mean.”

“Information.”

“How long have you known this information, then?”

“A little over six years.”

He crouches over her, feeling her breaths on his lips. “And where was the open communication you so often preach about during those six years?”

“For the record, you did go through that weird overprotective dad phase, and I didn’t want Salina to grow up friendless.”

Any remorse she might have had from before is gone. She grins back at him through the corner of her eyes, her head tilted to bare that delicious thread of tendon on her neck as she runs a hand up his thigh.

“And I’ve always thought you should get mad more often, dear husband.”


End file.
